The Looooong Winter

Apparently, this winter has been the worst New Jersey has seen in a long time, or at least that is what everyone is telling us.  Cody’s coworkers say it is our fault because I was so excited to have a winter with snow again! 



I think we’ve had a total of seven snow days where school has been canceled.   
We were incredibly unprepared for the massive amounts of snow.  There were a few weeks in February where we had snow storm after snow storm.  Our supplies included one snow shovel and a bag of rock salt.  Not enough. 


Luckily, we live in a cul-da-sac with really great neighbors.  Every time we’ve gone out to shovel, one of them has come over with their snow blower to help us.  Good thing I know how to make cookies. 
 
One evening when it snowed all night, Cody got out early the next morning to unbury the driveway so he could get to work.  The snow plow had come through and created a wall of snow in front of our driveway.  It was still freezing, so it was basically made of frozen boulders of snow.  It was going to take hours to unbury our driveway!  After Jade and I went out to help dig out by hand for a few minutes, once again a neighbor came to save the day.  After several more minutes, we were unburied!  It didn’t take long for us to figure out if we are going to stay in this climate, we better get a snow blower!  Or at least more snow shovels.
 
The good news is, I still love snow!  It is so incredibly beautiful.  I have really, really loved the winter! 
 
In fact, we all have.  We are all Utahns at heart, I guess. 
 
Playing in several feet of snow is every kid’s dream!  Jade had fun pretending she lived in a snow castle.  Ridge loved eating the snow and throwing snowballs. 
 

Plus, we finally got to build our snowman!  While Jade and I worked on it, I distracted Ridge so he wouldn’t push it over before it was done.  Jade said we were building a snow-woman, not a snow-man, so we made her with a dress. 
 
Then when we finished, I brought Ridge over to see it.  He looked at it for a minute and said, “Snowman not working!”  I thought about that for a minute and realized the only snowmen Ridge has ever seen are Frosty the Snowman and Olaf from Frozen.  He thought it should come alive and play with him!  He was a little disappointed when I told him it doesn’t work that way. 
 
After Ridge had a good taste of Ms. Snow-woman, the kids had fun knocking her over. 

On other days, we have had visits from a family of deer.  They are such beautiful, elegant creatures!  That was fun to see.
 
The doctor said Cody’s knee would be healed enough that he could ski on it in March.  As soon as he had a free weekend, he took Jade night skiing. 
Jade had a hard time at first, so Cody started taking her down with him as he held on to her from behind.  Cody told me, “she must be a Rowland because she loved going fast!”  After Jade could kind of feel how it was supposed to be done, Cody let her go down on her own on the less steep parts.  He said she was finally getting the hang of it on her last two runs and then they closed the lift and shut off the lights!  They had so much fun though, Jade woke up the next morning asking to go again! 
 
Most everyone living here was sick of winter long ago, but as for me, I have loved every minute!  It hasn’t been too long for this girl.  Playing out in the snow with the kids has made me feel like a kid again too!  It has been so much fun.  Maybe my tune will change next year, but I just don’t know that I can ever go back to not having four seasons.  I really think I’m starting to prefer the cold to the heat, I have loved it that much!